You would support your friends and colleagues who are nominated. Show them support, wish them well, applaud and acknowledge their accomplishments and contribute to the specialness of their night as they would applaud you were your name called.

In doing so, you would co-opt the Oscar Broadcast and have your point seen by millions watching the broadcast from around the world.

You would carry white flowers, wear a white tux, a fabulous white gown, drag around a fierce, white boa.

And every image of the Oscar broadcast would be a Sea of White.

Every shot of the audience, every on-camera interview, every Presenter, every One To Whom The Oscar Goes would be wearing white.

The White Oscars.

“Mommy; why is everyone wearing white…?”

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Boycotting the Oscars is not the answer.

Now. Especially now; is the time to show up.

While your absence might be felt, your seat would be filled.

Your presence, however, will be seen and felt and documented and last for as long as digital memory exists.

I offer that this is an opportunity to support the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in ramping up the evolution that has been far too long in coming.

Rather than damage and destroy, perhaps have a powerful and positive, immediate impact.

Build.

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Two parallels from our recent history come immediately to mind:

The 1980 Summer Olympic Boycott

The introduction of the AIDS ribbon

The US boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow made a very big point. It also punished an entire Olympic Generation of athletes who had focused their entire lives on that one moment.

America’s absence was certainly felt. No gold medal winner could truly know that s/he was the best in the world, because we weren’t there to compete. The laying down of arms to compete as comrades on the level field of play that is the foundation of the Olympics was absent. The wins were not complete; and for most of the worldwide athletes in 1980, that was their only shot.

The full glory and experience of victory was taken from them.

When the red AIDS ribbon first showed up on the lapel of Jeremy Irons at the 1991 Tony Awards, it launched a far bigger conversation. By Oscar time in ’92, the number of presenters and recipients on television was substantially greater and it made a huge difference in national and international awareness of the problem…frankly, it made the problem acceptable to discuss in contexts and forums that had been silent, before.

This quiet and undeniable activism on that carpet and stage by those who were stepping up, those who were concerned about what our government was not doing, those who were losing friends, partners, family to the plague…

…rendered that act Immortal.

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So.

Immortality?

Or home on your sofa?

Absence?

Or truly making a powerful, compelling, irrevocable and indelible statement, en masse, that moves this institution along?

Support your friends and colleagues, support the Academy in the necessary evolution.

Look fabulous, be powerful, step up.

That’s the way to go.

IMHO.

#OscarsSoWhite

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“IMHO: Creating Compelling Experience” is a free downloadable eBook on the tenets and methodologies we use to…create compelling experience. Find it in the iBooks app on any Apple device or in iTunes at this link.

I see your point and honestly I’m on the fence when it comes to this one, but I don’t think that #OscarWhiteNight would be nearly as effective as a boycott. Protests are inconvenient and controversial by nature. So to take away those two attributes would be the equivalent of not making a statement at all. So if you want to try and shed some light on the issue without making waves then yeah, #OscarWhiteNight is the way to go. Just know that this move will probably give a warm fuzzy feeling for a few days while consequently accomplishing nothing. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with standing for an issue without devaluing the success of others, I just don’t think this is one of those have your cake and eat it too situations. To put it simply there is no such thing as a protest that doesn’t inconvenience someone on some level.